Dropbox Attempts To Kill Open Source Project

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Dropbox Attempts To Kill Open Source Project

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 26, 2011 @05:14AM from the draw-your-swords dept.

Meskarune writes "Dropbox is trying to kill the Dropship project, a useful program that allows users to import files into their accounts using hashes and bypassing the need to make files public. Dropbox sent out fake DMCA requests to all parties involved, and is banning and censoring the program."

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Is that fraud? by Sprouticus · 2011-04-26 05:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Wouldn't an attempt to intentionally mislead someone with regard to DMCA be regarded as fraud?
1. Re:Is that fraud? by drosboro · 2011-04-26 05:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Well, intentionality would seem to be missing. As I quoted in a comment below, the update at the bottom of the article now reads as follows:
  
  Update: I want clear up a few things. As far as I’m aware all of the Dropship repositories and archives that were taken down was done so voluntarily. Dropbox never made threats, legal or otherwise. It appears the DMCA notice was automatically sent to me when the file was banned from public sharing. There was no real DMCA takedown issued. It was an edge case bug in their file removal system.
2. Re:Is that fraud? by DrgnDancer · 2011-04-26 05:25 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Except if you read the article, only one "fake" DCMA notice was sent out, and it appears to have been a legitimate accident. While the author of the article is not exactly happy with Dropbox's response to this matter he is not nearly as down on it as the summary suggests, and Dropbox's behavior was no near as flagrant as the summary suggests. This is not "nothing", but it's not anywhere near the level of "awful" suggested in the summary. Whole situation is somewhere between "tempest in teapot" and "very mildly concerning".
  
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  I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
3. Re:Is that fraud? by Hijacked+Public · 2011-04-26 06:01 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't want the admins at Dropbox going through my files.
  Don't put them on Dropbox's servers.
  
  --
  "Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
4. Re:Is that fraud? by _0xd0ad · 2011-04-26 06:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There was never a DMCA takedown notice.
  The DMCA takedown notice is what a copyright holder sends to a content host.
  The e-mail from the content host to the user saying "we deleted your file because ______" is not a DMCA takedown notice, regardless of what the reason they give.
  Content hosts are supposed to notify users whose content has been removed due to DMCA takedown notices so that the users have the opportunity to file counter-notices under the DMCA, but that correspondence is not itself a DMCA takedown notice.
5. Re:Is that fraud? by LordLimecat · 2011-04-26 06:16 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  It was not a DMCA "request". It was a notification that they were removing the file in order to comply with DMCA Section 512 C-1-c, which indicates "No liability if ... upon obtaining knowledge or awareness, OSP expeditiously removes Work"
  In other words, they believed the material to infringe on DMCA, and as the file host, they have the right and duty to remove such a file when they believe it to be infringing. See, Dropbox isnt just the potentially "injured party", they are also the service provider-- and that is the capacity they were issuing the notice in. (NB- IANAL)
6. Re:Is that fraud? by Unequivocal · 2011-04-26 06:45 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Use SpiderOak instead - zero prior knowledge encryption so no one but the password holder can see the files. (My relation to SO is as a non-paying customer).
Maybe a BIT sensationalistic... by drosboro · 2011-04-26 05:20 · Score: 5, Informative

Okay, according to the update at the bottom of the link (I know, I RTFA, weird, eh?),

Update: I want clear up a few things. As far as I’m aware all of the Dropship repositories and archives that were taken down was done so voluntarily. Dropbox never made threats, legal or otherwise. It appears the DMCA notice was automatically sent to me when the file was banned from public sharing. There was no real DMCA takedown issued. It was an edge case bug in their file removal system.
Apparently, Dropbox is asking nicely, but when they flagged the file it triggered an accidental DMCA notice, for which they seem to be apologizing.
1. Re:Maybe a BIT sensationalistic... by xMrFishx · 2011-04-26 05:24 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Why is there even a default DMCA notice in the system in the first place? Surely these things should be manually handled, rather than essentially "spammed" out. This is the sort of realm of Auto-Lawsuits where everyone got a letter through their mail box. This sort of thing should not be automatic in any sense of the word.
2. Re:Maybe a BIT sensationalistic... by 0100010001010011 · 2011-04-26 05:30 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  VIA post at slashdot.org
  Re: Copyright Claim
  The Slashdot Hosting Company:
  I am the copyright owner of the post being infringed at:
  http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2105778&cid=35944048
  Copies of the post being infringed are included to assist with their removal from the infringing Web sites.
  This letter is official notification under the provisions of Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) to effect removal of the above-reported infringements. I request that you immediately issue a cancellation message as specified in RFC 1036 for the specified postings and prevent the infringer, who is identified by its Web address, from posting the infringing photographs to your servers in the future. Please be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to “expeditiously remove or disable access to” the infringing photographs upon receiving this notice. Noncompliance may result in a loss of immunity for liability under the DMCA.
  I have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of here is not authorized by me, the copyright holder, or the law. The information provided here is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I swear under penalty of perjury that I am the copyright holder.
  Please send me at the address noted below a prompt response indicating the actions you have taken to resolve this matter.
  Sincerely,
  0100010001010011
3. Re:Maybe a BIT sensationalistic... by 0100010001010011 · 2011-04-26 05:38 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Oh shit. Sorry about that. I don't know what the system was thinking.
"Useful" by AdmiralXyz · 2011-04-26 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Useful though it may be, it's very clearly against Dropbox's Terms of Service. That doesn't give them the right to issue takedown notices to other sites on copyright grounds, but let's separate, "evil for issuing fake takedown notices" (which they are), from "evil for wanting to prevent this kind of activity" (which is perfectly reasonable).

They're not running a filesharing service, that's not their business model, and they don't want to end up like Rapidshare or any of the N other filesharing services in legal hot water. I love Dropbox, and I would hate to see one of it's most useful features- public collaboration folders- shut down because some asshats can't obey the TOS and just use torrents instead. Dropbox should be trying to find a technical solution to block something like this, but if that's not possible, what can they do?

--
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where's the firehose by penguinchris · 2011-04-26 05:29 · Score: 4, Informative

Vote this article down - it's misleading flamebait in the extreme. In particular, it fails to mention that the software was designed to facilitate anonymous filesharing, which would most certainly be used for copyright infringement and illegal purposes. And, the whole thing goes against Dropbox's TOS, even if it isn't used for dubious file sharing purposes.
1. Re:where's the firehose by Gaygirlie · 2011-04-26 05:38 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Vote this article down - it's misleading flamebait in the extreme. In particular, it fails to mention that the software was designed to facilitate anonymous filesharing, which would most certainly be used for copyright infringement and illegal purposes. And, the whole thing goes against Dropbox's TOS, even if it isn't used for dubious file sharing purposes.
  Agreed. The TOS is pretty darn clear on this and as such there is no reason to complain, they are fully in their rights to do this.
2. Re:where's the firehose by Jonner · 2011-04-26 06:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  According to some, 90% of all email is spam. Does that make SMTP an illegitimate protocol? Often, the easiest way to find copyright infringing works is using Google. Does that make the search engine illegitimate? Porn drove early VCR development. Is VHS an illegitimate technology?
Meh by Haedrian · 2011-04-26 05:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm with dropbox on this one. The idea of converting dropbox into some sort of filesharing/torrent service, for passing potentially illegal files around is not good.
I can see why Dropbox doesn't want to be linked to such a thing, when the big media people come a knocking, who do you think is going to end up getting sued?
And just because its open source doesn't make it right, or wrong, or change anything.
Re:Encryption? by h4rr4r · 2011-04-26 05:42 · Score: 4, Informative

If they used real encryption they would have to host files over and over again. Encryption breaks file deduping. No way is dropbox going to do something like that, there is no advantage in it for them.
Re:Fake DMCA request by _0xd0ad · 2011-04-26 05:48 · Score: 5, Informative

Sending a fake DMCA takedown is illegal, yes, but an e-mail that says "we deleted your file due to DMCA takedown notice we received" isn't a DMCA takedown notice. And apparently that e-mail just went out automatically any time they banned a file from someone's account. Apparently it never occurred to whoever designed their system that a file might be removed for anything other than copyright violation... or maybe the admin just didn't select the correct reason when he banned it.
Re:Encryption? by Jonner · 2011-04-26 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

It's already been shown that Dropbox's claims about security are mostly bogus. If Dropbox can Hand Over Your Files to the Feds If Asked then the encryption method they use to store files on their servers is meaningless since they have the private keys anyway.
Re:Don't understand by pmontra · 2011-04-26 06:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

Basically that means that the secrecy of that hash is the only thing that protects our files on Dropbox. They probably encrypt the files but if anybody has the right hashes s/he can decrypt them. The hash is the key and invites and sharing are not even checked.
Bullshit by wlad · 2011-04-26 06:51 · Score: 5, Informative

Hi, I'm the person why wrote dropship. This thread is completely bogus, as there were no DMCA requests issued at all. They mailed me and asked me nicely to take the code down from github, which I did.

The DMCA confusion is because they stopped a file from being shared on their own service, which generated a silly mail that a DMCA request had been received from themselves and hence a file was taken down. The blogger confused this with a DMCA request (and corrected it afterwards, but it seems slashdot missed this).

So can we cut it with the flamebait title?
It's a shame SpiderOak's sync funtion doesn't work by Overzeetop · 2011-04-26 08:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

Never has, never will based on the replies from CS/Tech Support. Seems that it will work okay with a simple setup and small data set, but get one thing off or try to use what you paid for (in my case, about 100GB of corporate data), and you can just give up. I spend two months, five re-installs, and countless hours trying to get things to work - we finally just gave up and went with an inferior service that we could make work acceptably.
FWIW - SO's backup service was flawless. I never found a missing file or had a problem with it keeping the backup data working.

--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?